Huckleberry Preschool

It’s huckleberry season here in Montana, so we did preschool activities to go along with it.
*These activities could also be used with B is for Blueberries (or B is for Berries).

• Pick Huckleberries!
1. We went on a hike to find our huckleberries
2. Pick, and eat, as many huckleberries as you can! (at least 1 cup for the projects below)
3. Talk about the different sizes and colors of huckleberries as you pick
• be sure to also talk about different wild berries how some kinds of berries are not safe to eat, so always ask before they try a berry!

• Huckleberry Dot-Counting
• You’ll need: paper, green crayon/marker/etc, die, and a dot-stamper
  
  
1. Start with a picture of hand drawn leaves all over the page to make a big huckleberry bush (minus the huckleberries, for now).
2. Have your child roll the die and count the dots.
3. Using the dot-stamper (we used a purple color like a huckleberry!), stamp that many “huckleberries” on the bush.
4. Repeat as many times as your preschooler wants, or once the bush fills up!

• Huckleberry Observations and Comparisons
  **My preschooler REALLY like this one.
• You’ll need: dixie cups (or sorter), berries of choice (we used blueberries and huckleberries), paper with observation/comparison questions (see below), crayons
1. Use the handout below, or make your own – on a piece of paper, divide it into as many sections as you have different berries (ie: we used 2 berries, so we had 2 sections – Huckleberry and Blueberry), write the berry names at the top (or have your preschooler write the names), and add things for your preschooler to observe and compare.
• Going through the paper I made:
1. (Write the names of the berries at the top) Which letters in their names are the same - match and color them
2. What color are the berrie
3. What size are the berries – small, medium, or large
4. How do they taste – good, not good, sour
5. How do they smell – good or not good
6. What shape are the berries
7. How much do you like them (color part or all of heart)

1. As you go through the questions with your preschooler, let them answer however they think, then talk about why they answered it that way.
2. After the observations are recorded, let them eat the rest of the berries in the cups!

• Make Huckleberry Muffins
1. Put an apron on your preschooler and let them help measure & pour in the ingredients, and stir the muffin batter
2. If you use liners, put those in, then have your preschooler count a certain amount of huckleberries in each cup
• Each column I told her a different number of huckleberries that she needed to put in (ie: first column is 4 huckleberries, the next is 5 huckleberries, etc.)
• It takes a while to fill up the whole pan with huckleberries, but it’s a great counting activity, especially if they get to eat some berries while they do it!

1. (I added huckleberries to the batter), spoon batter in, and bake. While you wait, you can make up a Huckleberry story!

• Make up a story about a Huckleberry
1. I recorded my preschooler as she made up a story about a huckleberry (named Huck) with question prompts from me. It’s pretty cute what their imaginations come up with.
2. Write it down word-for-word, so they always have that story
3. If they are feeling artistic, have them draw a scene from their story or you can help them draw it and they can add dot-stamp huckleberries (you could also help them make an actual book of their story).
4. Re-tell the story as you look at their picture/s, or have them re-tell it to you while you snack on huckleberry muffins.

My Preschooler’s Huckleberry Story:

-Kiley

H is for Honey

It was a cold and drizzly fall day today, so a nice, warm HONEY day was perfect for preschool. We gathered up all of our honey books and settled in for a relaxed preschool day. I would recommend all of these books below. It’s a great mix of fun fiction and simple non-fiction with great pictures.

• Read “The Beeman” by Laurie Krebs, Illustrated by Melissa Iwai … there are two illustrated versions by the same author.
  1. I really liked the illustrations in this book. A simple, rhyming story telling how honey is made, from the flower to the jar!
  2. Be sure to point out the hexagon-shape of the honeycomb in the book.

• Exploring Hexagons
  1. Gather all the yellow hexagon shapes from a bucket of pattern blocks. We have this bucket here. I got these last year and the kids love building with them and designing pictures.
  2. Count the sides … hexagons have SIX sides.
  3. Show them a picture of a honeycomb in one of your books.
  4. Show the kids how to place them side by side to form a “honeycomb”
  5. NOTE: just fyi … if I was going to buy these blocks again, I would buy the wooden blocks here. They are thicker and the kids can build vertically with them without the blocks tipping over.

 

• Honeycomb Beehives … I loved this idea from Spark Preschool!
  1. Print a copy of the blank beehive above (click on the picture).
  2. Taste test a honeycomb cereal  
  3. Show the kids that the cereal also has six sides.
  4. Glue honeycomb cereal onto the hive.
  5. Add bee stickers! We didn’t have any, but they would have been cute.

• Stories & Honey Tasting … for the rest of our preschool, we just had a fun, relaxing and tasty storytime!
  1. Collect several flavors of honey sticks. The family farm just down the road from us sells honey sticks. I let my girls pick out several flavors to try. Mmmm! You can also order a honey stick mix from Amazon. They were 4/$1.00 at the family farm, so the Amazon price is not bad.  
  2. Choose a book to read and a honey stick to sample! Try to guess the flavor. We really enjoyed all of these books … and most of our honey stick flavors  

• Scones & Honey Butter … it is cold and drizzly outside, so this was the perfect warm and sweet snack today!
1. Make a batch of your favorite scones (cornbread would be yummy too!) I used our very simple, family recipe below.
2. Spread honey butter on your scones while they are still warm. An easy and delicious recipe here. I only made 1/4 of what the recipe called for and it was plenty. Enjoy!!

H is for Humpty Dumpty

• Read “Little Lumpty” by Miko Imai 

  This is a great book that my kids and I really enjoyed. Little Lumpty lives in the town of Dumpty, the same town and the same wall that Humpty Dumpty fell from years ago. Little Lumpty is curious and climbs the wall, but how he gets down is another story.

 

• Humpty Dumpty eggs
  1. Use a sharpie marker to draw a simple face on a raw egg.
  2. There’s something about holding a real egg that my kids are fascinated about. We had to learn to be very gentle with the eggs because they can break very easily!
  3. Talk about the oval shape, the smooth, cool texture or anything the kids notice.

• Build Humpty Dumpty’s wall
1. Use duplos or other blocks to build a tall wall.
2. While you’re working, see what other words you can rhyme with TALL and WALL.
3. Place the tall wall inside a glass dish (to catch poor Humpty).
4. Place your Humpty Dumpty egg on top of the wall and sing the Humpty Dumpty rhyme. Let the kids roll Humpty off the wall!! Their reactions are awesome
5. We noticed that just like the rhyme, we “couldn’t put Humpty together again.”

• Scrambled Dumpty
1. My kids enjoyed letting their Humpty Dumpty eggs fall off the wall so much, we ended up with six eggs to scramble for lunch.
2. Let the kids help cut up some ham or turkey deli meat (it will cut with a butter knife).
3. They can help scramble the eggs with a wire whisk.
4. Cook the eggs and serve for lunch!
• Humpty Dumpty Coloring Page
1. While the scrambled eggs are cooking, the kids can color this fun rhyming coloring page.
2. Print here from Carl’s Corner.

• Humpty Puzzle Fixed with Bandaids … how’s that for a title?! My kids actually loved this and couldn’t figure out how it happened
1. Cut out a large oval from white cardstock.
2. Draw a Humpty Dumpty face on the oval.
3. Let the kids help color Humpty. My kids added legs and a tongue.
4. Set Humpty up on a high shelf, ledge or mantel. Make a big deal about “Oh, I hope Humpty doesn’t fall!”
5. Finish the rest of your preschool activities.
6. Sometime during the day (I did this when we left to pick up the boys from school…) be sneaky and cut Humpty into puzzle pieces. Scatter the pieces on the floor.
7. Let the kids discover poor Humpty and suggest they use bandaids to fix him.
8. My kids loved this and kept asking how he fell and broke into pieces!